


This Ain't A Scene

by NotThatCactusRen



Series: I'm Not Okay (I Promise) [3]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Self-Harm, off camera but pretty explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 20:15:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15469173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotThatCactusRen/pseuds/NotThatCactusRen
Summary: Five photos Hux kept and hid, and one he didn’t need to hide.





	This Ain't A Scene

**Author's Note:**

> This very likely is the last work in this series. Thanks for joining me for the ride.

1\. Posted June 4th, 2008 and captioned “New hair!!!<3”  
Kylo smiles coyly at the camera through a freshly dyed fringe of red and platinum blonde. The lines of his face have been softened with makeup, but are still too strong for feminine beauty. His lipstick is the same shade of red as his hair.  
Hux prints it out with shaking hands. He isn’t sure why they’re shaking, and tries not to think about it. He tucks the picture into a folder, behind some old school papers, and leaves it on his desk. He doesn’t open it again for months, but he does rest his hand on it from time to time.

2\. Posted October 17th, 2008 and captioned “Makeup test for Mom’s Halloween party.”

Kylo grins up at the camera through a fairly realistic bloody nose and black eye. The shot has clearly been taken in a bathroom mirror with a camera phone. In one corner of the image, out of focus, the mirror has caught the tops of Kylo’s thighs. There are cuts on them, perfectly straight, a few days old. They are definitely not makeup.  
Hux prints this one thinking about masks and tucks it behind the other one. A few days later someone else comments on the cuts and the photo is deleted along with all of its comments. Hux sometimes takes this one out of the folder to look at. It makes him feel something, some longing, but he has no idea what he might be longing for. The more he tries not to look at him the more the cuts catch his eye; when he gives in and stares at them he notices the look in Kylo’s eyes. It’s not something he’s comfortable naming, so he eventually settles on ‘defiantly sad’. He’s left with that and the growing suspicion that Kylo had known exactly what he was posting.  
On Monday morning Hux says hello to Kylo on the way into Biology. Kylo is talking to his lab partner about a show he went to Friday night and doesn’t hear him. Instead of risking a second attempt, Huxx throws himself into his classwork and tries to put Kylo from his mind. Kylo doesn’t raise his hand a single time, and Hux can’t remember if that’s normal for him or not.

3\. Posted November 1st, 2008 and uncaptioned.  
Kylo stares directly into the camera out of two black eyes. His lip is split and swollen. His expression is wary, almost challenging the viewer. Something about it strikes Hux to the core, affects him in a way Kylo’s photoshopped nudes never have. So this is what he looks like naked, Hux thinks as he prints this one and tapes it to the side of his desk, where he can only see it if he lays in bed with the light on.  
Kylo at school on monnday is sulky and withdrawn, and the rumors are wild. Hux overhears a cheerleader telling her friend that Kylo started a fight at his mother’s party, that he’d already been almost too drunk to stand and no one had heard what he’d said to the quarterback, only that it’d taken half his team to pull him off of Kylo. Hux is… not worried, not quite. Brendan is well aware that Kylo does not consider him a friend, may not even know he exists. Worry is for people that know Kylo. Hux just wants Kylo to never look that way at anyone but him.

4\. Posted November 23d, 2008 and captioned “So guys, I’m sorry I scared you with my last post about being in the ER. They patched me up, and I’m not alone.”  
The photo itself is of Kylo in a green hospital gown, tucked into a white hospital bed. Hux is spilling out of his chair beside the bed with his head practically in Kylo’s lap. Kylo himself looks pale and tired, but his smile is genuine.  
Hux doesn’t see this photo until several days after it’s posted. By then he’s actually talked to Kylo, half-carried him, bleeding, into Hux’s beat up old truck. Now he is starting to consider Kylo a friend, and Kylo credits Hux with saving his life. It should be enough, Brendon thinks, the talking and the saving and the might-be-flirting. He shouldn’t still be working on this, collecting photos and tidbits of information. It’s creepy and he can’t seem to stop. This photo goes in his wallet, sandwiched between two coffee punchcards. He doesn’t look at it very often to begin with because it makes something hurt in the vicinity of his digestive system, and anyway the more time he spends with Kylo the less he needs a picture of him. Eventually Hux puts it away with the other two, stopping while he does to move the one by the bed. He might want to have Kylo in that bed with the lights on someday.  
5\. Posted December 23d and captioned “Happy birthday Huxy!<3”  
Kylo in the photo is sprawled across his own bed wearing black boxer, a great deal of corn syrup blood, and a smile.  
This one Hux only prints because he is beginning to fear screen burn-in of the image. This one he frames, before tucking it into the nightstand next to the lube and condoms that have recently begun living there.  
And one he didn’t have to hide:  
Posted May 9th, 2009 with no caption.  
A scan of a polaroid where the two young men in the photo are only touching at their joined hands and are both mid-laugh at some shared joke. Their formal wear is rumpled, bowties draped around necks bare by unfastened collars. Hux’s hair looks like he’s been the victim of a personal windstorm. He’s never seen himself that happy.  
Looking at it the morning after, Hux has a hard time remembering the last photo to capture him smiling. Hux frames this one, too, but after it’s arranged to his satisfaction he sets it up on his desk, where it becomes the only item on his desk without a tangible purpose. The next time Kylo comes over his eyes fall immediately on the simple wooden frame. He doesn’t say anything and Hux doesn’t need him to, just pulls him into a kiss that starts slow and rolls into passionate.


End file.
